John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Quaide is not here to move amendments Nos. 1 to 8, inclusive, in his name. In any event, amendments Nos. 2 and 3 and amendments Nos. 5 to 7, inclusive, have been ruled out of order.

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Amendment No. 9 arises out of committee proceedings.

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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I move amendment No. 9:

In page 5, between lines 11 and 12, to insert the following:

“Amendment of section 146 of Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015

2. The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 is amended by the substitution of the following section for section 146:

“146. (1) The Minister shall, in consultation with the Minister for Health cause a review of the functioning of this Act (other than Part 8) to be carried out before the 5th anniversary of the date of enactment of this Act.

(2) A review carried out under subsection (1) shall:

(a) consider if the process of exiting wardship of court allows for maximum engagement with the ward;

(b) include engagement with relevant stakeholders including, but not limited to:

(i) families and/or representative organisations;

(ii) health, mental health and disability service providers, so as to ensure that maximum capacity can be allowed for taking into account where existing daily supports are already enabling wards of court to make decisions;

(c) consider allowing for the revisiting of decisions made as court wardship was exited, if capacity wasn’t sufficiently allowed for, and ensure that assisted decision making representation and co-decision making should be used only where necessary, and that decision making representation is used preferably for the period of important single decisions including, but not limited to major health and financial decisions.”.”.

The Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, is hardly shocked to see this amendment in front of the House. It gives the Dáil an opportunity to deal with some of the issues. In explaining why I am making this proposal, I will start at the beginning. I was contacted by St. John of God intellectual disability services in relation to particular issues that it had at the time around wards of court. For legacy reasons, people who had some sort of inheritance or whatever were made wards of court. When they were going through the operation of being discharged, the disability service believed that these were people with a decent element of capacity and assumed that they would have been discharged altogether without the need for co-decision making or a decision-making representative.

This issue relates to the decision-making representative, DMR. The example I have used previously relates to an instance in which someone wanted to go shopping in Newry. Obviously, I am dealing with a disability service that operates in Dundalk. When a person wanted to go to Newry, the service would have had to go through their DMR. This seemed to create a huge level of difficulty. There was a fear that there may have been an element of being overprotective as the discharge process was ongoing.

The big issue here, and the reason the Minister of State looked for pre-legislative scrutiny to be waived, is that a number of people will not be discharged in time for the change that was due to come into effect on 26 April and would therefore fall into legal limbo. None of us want that to happen. I am relatively pleased to say that I have spoken to representatives of St. John of God intellectual disability services and they have engaged with a number of officials from the Courts Service. They were highly impressed and really appreciative of the engagement. They have come up with some methods. An independent assessment has to be made on a ward of court who is to be discharged, obviously. St. John of God would like certain information, such as the mitigations and the support factors surrounding these people, to be in front of the court. It about making sure that all the information it knows is passed on. In fairness, there seems to be an improvement in relation to that. There were some very straight conversations around these supports. There will be continued engagement from here on in. That is all very positive.

The other piece of positivity that I spoke to previously is the fact that the entire Bill is being reviewed. Obviously, there was insufficient capacity to deal with all of the wards of court who needed to be discharged. We need to ensure we deal with discharging those wards of court within the next 18 months. We do not want to be back facing this circumstance again. The review is all important for a number of reasons. We know there are huge issues in relation to using banking services that have become more difficult. St. John of God is one of the groups that brought that particular issue up. Families have issues in relation to the engagement. We need to make absolutely sure that the Bill is focused on those who need the support. In addition, there must be real engagement with those who are wards of court at the moment or those who will fall under these parameters in the future. In some cases, we are talking about some of our most vulnerable people, such as those who need disability services, mental health services and whatever else. We get the idea that it is about ensuring that people are given the maximum support they need, while assuming as much capacity as possible from the point of view of allowing them to live their lives. This created difficulties in the beginning for some of the disability services that I spoke to. They were probably too protective in how they operated, and then they had to free up how they operate to some degree. Like us, they learned from their mistakes. I have seen some positives where previously I would have been worried. Again, the big thing is that it is about engagement with all of the stakeholders such as the disability, healthcare and mental health services. It is about engaging properly with families and parents so they do not feel left out. It is absolutely about engaging with those people we are attempting to give support to.

The big thing is that we ensure the review is comprehensive and deals with a number of these sets of circumstances. We must also address some of what is in the public domain to a degree, whether it relates to the banking sector, to families or to the issue I have brought forward. The interaction between St. John of God intellectual disability services and the Courts Service, following on from the meeting between the Department, the Courts Services and ourselves when we agreed to waive pre-legislative scrutiny, has been positive. I am not going to put this to a vote, but it is worthwhile that we air these particular issues.

Gillian Toole (Meath East, Independent)
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7 o’clock

Similarly to an Teachta Ó Murchú, I commend the Minister of State and her team for the work that has been done to date. I laud the fact that the review process will be brought forward. That is important. I will not be pedantic and repeat what has already been said. There has been that offer of collaboration from Professor O'Flynn in University of Galway. I have passed on the details of the relevant person in the Department. We would have received some correspondence from Justice for Wards. The review process will be timely and highly beneficial to all parties. It will also be an opportunity to measure the progress as well, given the extension that has been enabled for due process to continue. We must encourage trust and engagement from those who might have been a little reticent heretofore that people are brought along in a spirit of collaboration and in the best interests and to achieve that will and preference for those who are vulnerable and concerned.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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Does Deputy Quaide wish to come in?

Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats)
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I came in just after Deputy Ó Murchú started.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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Deputy Quaide can speak to Deputy Ó Murchú's amendment, but I am afraid we have gone past the Deputy's amendments.

Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats)
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Is this amendments Nos. 1 and 4?

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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We are discussing amendment No. 9. The Deputy has seven minutes if he wishes to speak.

Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats)
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I have lost track a little bit here. I will pass over.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank all Deputies in the House and on the disability matters committee for their constructive and robust engagement on this important Bill, both to date and on Second Stage and Committee Stage. I know there is widespread agreement on the need for this Bill to ensure that wards of court who are due to transition out of wardship have the legal certainty that they require and they are enabled to move through the discharge process in a fair and an orderly manner. It is crucial that both wards and committees are supported as they move through this process of transitioning out of wardship and into the new rights-based framework of decision support arrangements. A key issue that was raised throughout discussions, and both Deputies Ó Murchú and Toole raised it again today, was around the need for meaningful consultation and engagement with stakeholders, including wards and committees. I reiterate my commitment to continued engagement with a wide range of stakeholders, including those with lived experience of the provisions of the assisted decision-making legislation. As Deputy Toole has done earlier, I reiterate and reaffirm my Department's commitment to bringing that wider review of the legislation forward earlier than planned. We are beginning preparations with a view to starting that this year.

I thank Deputy Ó Murchú for what he has said in relation to St. John of God's. It is great to hear that they were highly impressed by the meetings and consultations that happened afterwards. That is down to the Courts Service, and to three of my officials, who are here today, namely Jane-Ann Duffy, Melanie Campbell and Orla Cooper, who put a lot of work in following our discussions. I acknowledge them today. I acknowledge that productive meetings were held and specific cases were raised at them and have been discussed. I thank everybody for their engagement on this. It is an important Bill. We will move tomorrow to the Seanad through all Stages, we hope, with a view to getting this moved as quickly as possible so we can provide legal certainty to our wards as they move out of wardship.

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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As I said previously, it is vital legislation in the sense that we find ourselves in this place. I could make the argument that we should not have found ourselves in this place. Enough time should have been put aside. I have, once again, put on the record some of the issues and the worries I had. I will commend the interaction that there has been. The big thing for all of us is that idea that we review and make sure we deal with those anomalies that exist where those with a disability who are in disability services and previously could have got a bank account with two signatories, that this has now become at times a near impossibility. In cases, people have gone to the credit union or other institutions to try to work around it, but that is not good enough.

I reiterate that idea that we need to make sure that we have the maximum amount of engagement with the stakeholders, the likes of disability services such as St. John of God's and others, but also good engagement with families and those relations who have been involved in the care of their children, in an awful lot of cases, for all their lives. We need to ensure at the core of it is, in this case, the ward of courts, and then all those people who will fall under this particular bracket. Because we are going through courts, I am always worried about logjams and everything else. We need to make sure we have the adequate resources and that we do not have hold-ups that are not necessary. The big one is about supporting those who need support, but also providing those that have capacity with as much freedom as we possibly can.

Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats)
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I echo the point made by Deputy Ó Murchú. Research undertaken by the National Disability Authority has indicated that people have not been supported sufficiently to understand what the end of the wardship system means for them and those supporting them. We must ensure that all those who come within the scope of the original Act, namely, disabled people, older people and people with severe mental health difficulties have a legal right to accessible information, meaningful engagement and practical supports, including independent advocacy. That is a crucial point in terms of upholding human rights. The National Disability Authority research notes that despite information efforts by public bodies, many wards and committees experience what was described as an "information vacuum" and confusion about roles and responsibilities within the system. That tells us that issuing information is not the same as ensuring understanding to a reasonable degree.

In the transition to rights-based in practice, accessible formats, practical navigation supports and independent advocacy must be consistently available. Where extensions are granted, the additional time should be used actively to support informed participation. There has been a failure to appropriately resource the public bodies most involved in the implementation of the Act, such as the Decision Support Service, Legal Aid Board and National Advocacy Service in order to achieve that goal. I am calling on the Minister of State to commit to providing further resources to the public bodies involved in implementing the legislation to ensure that those impacted have their human rights fully upheld. This includes additional resources to the bodies I mentioned. It is important that we have that concrete commitment as we proceed with this legislation.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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A lot of the amendments are along the same theme and are similar to Committee Stage and the Second Stage debate, which I contributed to. I do not know if the Minister of State is accepting amendments, but what is more important is the principle that she is hearing what is being said and showing a willingness to engage and be responsive to what she is hearing. I have a number of questions and queries in relation to the system as it exists from people affected. For example, what is the complaints mechanism for bringing a complaint against the DSS if one has a complaint? What is the degree to which IHREC is assessing the legislation, if it is doing that? If it is not, why not? There is concern, and this was raised with me at a constituency clinic, that assessments are being done without notification being given to families where it applies, such as in the case of wards resident in nursing homes.

It seems the system is not working in a joined-up way that allows it to communicate effectively with whomever it needs to communicate with. Regardless of whether she is accepting amendments or not, the Minister of State is hearing clearly what is being said about the willingness to engage, meet and ensure that the system is robust and responsive.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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On Deputy O'Rourke's question, the Department briefed IHREC on the proposed amendments in advance of taking the legislation through the Houses.

In the context of Deputy Quaide’s question on resourcing, the decision support services received an uplift in their budget this year for that reason. We trust that the services will use that money accordingly.

We all agree that consultation is the name of the game here. That is something the Department has done. When we first got Cabinet approval for thism we immediately went out and consulted with key stakeholders. We did that online and in person. We had a key consultation meeting earlier this month in relation to this Bill.

Some of the issues that were raised related to the parameters of financial agreements. Ultimately, a number of people stated that they thought there should be better support from a financial perspective. That is something we are taking on board. I have written to the Minister for Finance to see if there is any support he can provide to people in this situation and to the committees going forward.

We are on the same page when it comes to consultation. That is why we will be starting our consultation on the review of the legislation ahead of schedule. As I said, preparatory work has already been done and we will be starting that later this year.

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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There is a certain consistency regarding what was stated on Second Stage and on Committee Stage. There is the idea that we want a framework. We want something that works. Everybody accepts that the legislation is necessary. There is a logjam. There are a number of people who were not going to be discharged as wards of court, and nobody wanted to see them left in limbo. It is about making sure that the review can look at all the weaknesses that exist in the assisted decision-making legislation. It is also about ensuring that the discharging process works as well as it possibly can.

I reiterate the absolute necessity of engagement with families and with the person who is in need of support, as well as the wider stakeholders like disability services. What I saw with St. John of God intellectual disability services and the level of engagement involved was great. I appreciate the efforts of the officials from the Department and the Courts Service who were involved in that regard. The Minister of State indicated that there will be a number of events in which they will be involved. That is absolutely necessary. We need to make sure the issues that exist across banking and so on are dealt with. As I said, the really positive thing I got when speaking to the representatives of St. John of God disability services was that while it had been very worried about assisted decision-making at the outset and had thought they would not be able to protect those who needed protection, when the organisation stretched itself and put supports in place, both it and those in its care benefited. We need to see more of that. It is about allowing someone the maximum freedom to be everything they can be.